Earthquake turns Myanmar’s shiny capital city to dust

Naypyitaw, Myanmar: It was supposed to be a symbol of power, progress and modernity, the face of a new Myanmar, built at a cost of billions of dollars and immune to foreign invaders and natural disasters.

Now the brilliant white streets and eight-lane roads of the capital Naypyitaw are veined with gaping splits and cracks, its prized airport in ruins, after a massive earthquake struck the country on Friday and made Myanmar’s future more uncertain than ever, its seat of power ever more fragile.

Myanmar soldiers pass in review during the Armed Forces Day ceremony in the new capital of Naypyitaw in 2007, the first time Western journalists were allowed to view the new city.Credit: AP

The extent of the disaster – beginning at the epicentre in Mandalay and stretching hundreds of kilometres to neighbouring Thailand – remains unclear.

But it is possible that thousands of people have lost their lives.

As the 7.7 magnitude earthquake hit the country in the early afternoon, residents fled the dust and debris falling around them.

The disaster comes at a critical time for Myanmar, already torn apart by a brutal civil war.

Damaged pagodas are seen in Naypyitaw, Myanmar after the earthquake.Credit: AP

Four years on from the military coup, a third of the population is reliant on humanitarian aid, the economy in ruins, and a severe food crisis under way.

On Saturday, Myanmar’s junta estimated that more than 1000 people were killed and some 2300 were injured, but the group is known for under-reporting casualties.

A situation report from the United States Geological Survey predicted a 34 per cent chance that there were between 10,000 and 100,000 fatalities.

The ground at Mandalay General Hospital, close to the epicentre, was streaked with blood on Friday.

Volunteers look for survivors in Naypyitaw, Myanmar.Credit: AP

Around it lay dozens of injured people, some resting on wooden pallets, the others on sheets of cardboard.

“When my mother arrived at the Mandalay General Hospital, she was still alive,” Thiri San, 39, told the London Telegraph.

“But there weren’t enough doctors to treat her and she lost too much blood from her head injury and passed away.”

The situation is so dire that the ruling junta has made a rare plea for humanitarian aid. As those organisations assess the damage, they are bracing for the worst.

“The earthquake could not have come at a worse time,” said Joe Freeman, a Myanmar researcher at Amnesty International.

“Central Myanmar, which is believed to be the epicentre of the earthquake, has been ravaged by military airstrikes and clashes between resistance groups and the military,” he added.

More than 3.5 million people have been displaced by the conflict, according to the UN.

Fierce fighting is ongoing around Mandalay and the rebel-held Sagaing, where some of the worst destruction caused by the earthquake unfolded.

Myanmar has a longstanding practice of denying aid to areas where groups who resist the regime are most active.

The devastation appears worse in Mandalay: houses collapsed on almost every street, while the walls of the moat around the city’s palace have crumbled.

Ambulances could be heard rushing through the city well into the night.

The city’s main hospitals were overflowing with patients, beds spilling into parking lots, while the demand for blood was outpacing supply.

“At least 200 patients have arrived at the hospital’s emergency department,” said Dr Yan Naing, speaking from Mandalay General Hospital.

“There aren’t enough doctors and space. Patients are scattered inside the hospital… Across Myanmar, I believe the death toll will be in the hundreds.”

Unveiled in 2005, Naypyitaw was crowned the new capital. Unlike Yangon, its predecessor, it was grand, pristine and sparsely populated. Critics decried it as a vanity project by the ruling junta and, being further inland than Yangon, formerly called Rangoon, a reflection of its paranoia to protect itself against an amphibious US invasion, a natural disaster from the sea, and a popular uprising.

“By withdrawing from the major city, Rangoon, [former Burmese army general] Than Shwe and the leadership ... sheltered themselves from any popular uprising,” said activists Benedict Rogers and Jeremy Woodrum in their book Than Shwe: Unmasking Burma’s Tyrant.

Prior to the disaster millions of people across the country were already living in fear and insecurity, with little access to medical care.

Earthquake victims and family members gather at the government hospital compound in Naypyitaw.Credit: Myanmar Military/AP

The suspension of US foreign development assistance by US President Donald Trump earlier this year has worsened the crisis.

Before the move, the US was one of the largest donors to Myanmar, spending roughly $US200 million ($317 million) a year.

Abrupt funding cuts forced humanitarian organisations to scale back operations and have had a “crushing impact” on its people, according to experts.

“This is a catastrophe that is unfolding – it is unnecessary and it is cruel,” said Thomas Andrews, the US special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, earlier this month.

Myanmar’s military leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, centre in green, inspects a damaged road in Naypyitaw.Credit: AP

Just days before the earthquake, the UN announced it would cut aid to more than one million people in the country from next month, citing global funding shortfalls.

“At the same time, the impacts of US aid cuts on humanitarian services in the country are just starting to bite,” said Freeman.

The tremors on Friday stretched as far as Thailand, where a state of emergency was declared and a 30-storey skyscraper tumbled to the ground.

At least nine people were killed and more than 100 injured.

Back in Mandalay, San held her bleeding head.

Despite the death of her mother, she said she was still waiting to receive treatment for her own injuries and was “in pain inside out”.

The trauma she had suffered was apparent in her wavering voice.

“I saw bricks falling on my mother’s head. I tried to run to her, but I couldn’t reach her in time,” San said. “My 89-year-old father said this is the worst earthquake in his life.”

The Telegraph, London